


wear an acorn button on a chain

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: ADHD Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Episode: s03 Poupeflekta | Reflekdoll, F/M, Identity Reveal, Podfic Welcome, Romantic Fluff, sitting these two clowns down to talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 18:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20511890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: "If he directed Cataclysm to break something into a trap," Adrien said, "as long as either she'd used Lucky Charm already or she couldn't for some other reason, game over."Why were they debating which of Ladybug and Chat Noir would win a fight? "Game never begun," Marinette told them. "They can'thavea fair fight; it's not possible.""Friendly sparring, nothing at stake but who pays for ice cream." Adrien smirked. "Chat Noir wins easy."Marinette pulled out her flattestI am done with my partner's nonsenseexpression, weird as it was to turn it on Adrien. "Uh-huh. Ladybug's faster and the yo-yo's a better distance weapon."





	wear an acorn button on a chain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LNC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LNC/gifts), [GalahadWilder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/gifts).
  * Inspired by [in which they stan themselves](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/516359) by lnc2. 

> This is set after all episodes aired to publication date (which is, you'll observe, before "Desperada" aired). "Reflekdoll" must have been well before "Miraculer".

"—would _obviously_ defeat Ladybug in a fair fight," Lila was saying as Marinette skidded into the classroom. "If it ever had to come to that."

Marinette ignored the frustrated look on Adrien's face and the excited one on Alya's. "Wrong on all counts," she told Lila, storming to her desk as though Lila wasn't a physical barrier, which—Marinette was delighted to note—did mean Lila stepped back enough to not be a physical barrier. "I did not even hear the subject of that sentence and I still know you are wrong on all counts."

She probably shouldn't say anything, really, but she'd had to deal with Sandboy at three that morning _again_—Hawkmoth's attrition strategy was not as subtle as he probably thought it was—and she was not up for exercising one micron more self-control than absolutely required.

Adrien twisted around in his seat as Marinette dropped into hers. "Unusually, I think she's right. I don't think we know what Cataclysm does to living things yet—"

"We do," Chloé interrupted. "Miraculer hit Chat Noir with it."

"Did she?" Adrien glanced Chloé's way. "You were complaining about knockoff handbags not even two days ago, saying copies will never be as good as the original. Same principle, right? Anyway, I don't think we can assume Chat Noir could kill someone that way—"

"Miraculer's Cataclysm really hurt him," Chloé told Adrien. "One-hit kill, no. Lots of damage, yes. Nasty status effect, probably also yes."

Adrien winced. "So he might have died right after the battle if Ladybug—" Fortunately for Marinette's heart, he stopped, swallowed, and retreated: "_Anyway_, if he directed Cataclysm to break something into a trap? As long as either she'd used Lucky Charm already or she couldn't for some other reason, game over."

Why were they debating which of Ladybug and Chat Noir would win a fight? "Game never begun," Marinette told them. "They can't _have_ a fair fight; it's not possible."

Adrien eyed her, his gaze passing over Lila as though she wasn't there. "And why is that?"

Ulp. "R-rumor has it he's in love with her." Adrien knew that, right? Everyone knew that. "Rumor has it the reverse is not true. So if neither of them has had their emotions screwed with to change that—"

"Leave me out of this!" Kim exclaimed, waving his hands in theatrical surrender. Adrien threw a pen at him.

—That wasn't usual Adrien behavior. It didn't look like a heavy pen, he didn't throw it hard, and Kim's hoodie meant plenty of cushioning where it hit, so it couldn't have hurt him; anyway, Kim liked to pretend he only felt pain when Alix was beating him at one athletic event or another, and he'd certainly gotten out of trouble for getting in more than one fistfight by silently agreeing with whoever he was scuffling with that neither would admit there'd been one, no matter what the cuts and bruises said. But it wasn't at all in character for Adrien.

"—then it isn't a fair fight because she can hit more of his soft spots than he can hers," Marinette's mouth continued, without pause and mostly without her input. "And if either of them _has_, then it's an unfair fight for other reasons."

"That's true." Adrien didn't seem to notice Lila trying to say something else. (Also not usual Adrien behavior, but this one wasn't worrying Marinette like the thrown pen was, or like it would Marinette if she didn't know Adrien didn't want to hear Lila's lies either.) "If it actually came down to that, she'd roll over and let him kill her."

"The hell she would!" Ladybug fighting Chat Noir was a hateful prospect, but not half as hateful as watching Chat Noir do things he'd hate himself for later, whether he remembered doing them or not.

"The hell she wouldn't!" Adrien retorted. "She hates fighting him, that's obvious from every time she has to."

She had no idea where all of Chat Noir's ethical lines were—what he could and couldn't do without hating himself after, no matter how good a reason he had for doing it—but she was pretty sure _killing Ladybug_ was so far on the wrong side of those lines he wouldn't actually survive her long enough to hate himself at all.

"—yeah, that's horrifying to think about. Let's step down the threat level." Adrien's attention was fixed on Marinette in a way that wasn't making her heart dance, it _wasn't_, she wouldn't _let it_ because he loved someone _else_ and she wanted him _happy_. It did help that he looked and sounded as though he was trying to calm her. "Friendly sparring, nothing at stake but who pays for ice cream."

Marinette nodded, though the mere sound of ice cream was turning her stomach.

Adrien smirked. "Chat Noir wins easy."

Marinette pulled out her flattest _I am done with my partner's nonsense_ expression, weird as it was to turn it on Adrien. "Uh-huh. Ladybug's faster and the yo-yo's a better distance weapon. Or she can Charm up an _actual_ distance weapon."

"He's sneakier, and he's better at mêlée. And she can't see in the dark." Adrien grinned. "Lights out, and then lights out."

"If he didn't trip over himself getting there," Marinette shot back, and when Adrien blinked, she finished, "Yo-yo tripwire."

Adrien turned crimson.

—Oh no. "Adrien?"

"Yeah, she could get him pretty—pretty tied up in, in knots," Adrien said, not looking at anyone, and Marinette's imagination helpfully presented her with the image of her red-gloved hand on Adrien's cheek, the other tapping Chat Noir's baton against his bell, Adrien shirtless and blushing and Chat Noir smirking and both handsome boys carefully entangled in her yo-yo cord like there was nowhere else either wanted to be.

Marinette's cheeks burned.

A shadow flicked through Adrien's expression. "Yeah, you're right," he told Marinette, still not looking at anyone, though his embarrassment seemed to be fading. "She could beat him no trouble." That did not improve the _entirely and vehemently unwanted_ mental images the least bit. "It's not like she needs him anyway. Maybe she did at first, but there are so many others now—"

There were six part-time Miraculous wielders present. Alya and Nino looked appropriately offended; she could not see the others, but if Marinette were to find out that any of them doubted her partner—

"She should just kick his dead weight to the curb," Adrien told his desk.

"The hell she should!" Marinette wasn't going to lean into his personal space—even if it were ever okay, he got too much of that from Lila, who currently wore a calculating expression Marinette did not like one bit—but she was damn sure going to storm down to his level and _get his attention_. "The _hell_ she should!"

And that settled the internal argument over whether Ladybug should ever add Adrien to their number, too. She hadn't yet because she wasn't sure if it was cowardice or good sense that kept him out of all akuma attacks he was nearby for and not the target of, and because she couldn't gamble anyone's safety—least of all Adrien's own—on whether her assessment of his capabilities was accurate or romantically exaggerated.

"If they switched powers again," Marinette's mouth continued, without pause and mostly without her input, "and then something took her out of the fight, he would still beat the akuma!" That damn mirror—_exactly_ what the smug cat had asked for— "Hell, he'd probably have an easier time of it!"

Adrien whipped his head around, glaring. "Did you seriously just say Monsieur Bug could beat an akuma better than Ladybug? Especially if Ladynoire weren't right there with him?"

No one was in earshot for those remarks.

Maybe several people could have heard him call himself Monsieur Bug when calling Miraculous Cure. But _no one_ could have heard either of them call her Ladynoire.

Marinette's mouth, without her consent, said "Yep. Sure did."

No one but them.

She closed her mouth before anything else too implicating could sneak out.

"You cannot mean that," Adrien said, folding his arms.

"I can and I do. His plans have fewer moving parts. Fewer places things can go _wrong_." Adrien blinked at her some more. "He is at _least_ as capable as Ladybug," Marinette continued: Adrien was too important to her to let him believe these _lies_. "The only thing that's ever meant he can't win an akuma battle on his own is he doesn't have the healing magic. _Oh wait_." She stared him down. "I said '_if they switched_'."

Adrien stared back, his jaw slackened. Then shook himself: "Why would he want to win alone?"

"I don't know," said Marinette, steely. "Why would she?"

He didn't answer.

"Monsieur Bug, huh," said Alya after a few moments' silence. "Where'd you get that from, Adrien?"

He twisted around and, judging by how his head moved, made a show of rolling his eyes at Alya. "…he shouted it when he fixed everything Reflekta and Reflekdoll broke?"

"Is that the only reason?" asked Marinette.

Adrien straightened himself without looking at her. "Of course he'd take her name when he gave her his ring, Marinette, what sort of misogynist do you take him for?"

That was one thing Chat Noir had never been guilty of.

That was also the exact sort of line Ladybug would expect Chat Noir to say.

Marinette's mouth, without her consent, said "You said Ladynoire."

Adrien jerked, half rising from his seat: she might be leaning closer than she should but _he_ stopped moving when his head hit level with hers—his lips almost close enough to kiss, his eyes—

His human-round eyes with the same gold glints she'd seen when her partner was wielding her own Miraculous. The same emerald hue she'd seen just this morning, just this close, when Chat Noir pinned his too-tired partner to a wall to keep her clear of a blow from Chat Tourment's too-weighted baton.

Marinette asked, "Where did you get that from?"

—And she was committed now. Fuck.

Adrien shrugged, going pink again, settling back down, looking away. "Well, they swapped powers, didn't they? But they're the same people under the masks? It makes sense they'd swap half their names."

Mme. Bustier clapped three times; Marinette let it seem to startle her. (Only Adrien truly could startle Marinette anymore. Ladybug was actually easier to sneak up on, which _bothered_ her. But Ladybug being able to filter out all the little and usually-unimportant stuff—things Marinette could only be unaware of when hyperfocusing—helped her more often than it didn't, and Ladybug usually had the option of hitting whatever was startling her.) She sank back into her seat, ignoring whatever Lila was silently pretending not to be plotting, and got out her tablet. Adrien turned his attention to the front of the room.

Alya set her phone on the desk, smirking. From Marinette's purse, the quiet ding that meant a message from Chat Noir to Ladybug, not urgent.

How could—how could—but—

A few minutes later, Alya nudged Marinette and pointed at her tablet's notification bar. Marinette, irritated, opened the chat app to the more recent private message:

> _Vermeillya:_ excellent progress girl!
> 
> _Marineedles:_ …sure

The other private message—

> _UnderAgreste:_ I need to talk to you at lunch
> 
> _UnderAgreste:_ about just now
> 
> _UnderAgreste:_ please

This was terrible—he would ask her what that was about and she wouldn't be able to answer, and he would abandon her to drown in the river and go off and live his life much better without her than he ever could with her, _whether or not_ she was right—

> _Marineedles:_ sure!

She snuck her phone out of her purse. The app was on both devices, but she hadn't rigged her tablet to pretend it was her yo-yo and vice versa; only her phone. And his phone and baton similarly.

> _Catastrophe:_ I think I fucked up
> 
> _Catastrophe:_ I don't know if I can ask you to help fix it without explaining enough to make it worse

Okay, this was—

This was a bad idea. She should breathe and tell her heart to stop racing and—

> _Marineedles:_ why not coccinel noir?
> 
> _UnderAgreste:_ he's a secret romantic

This was a _very bad idea_—

She pressed send before she could backspace it all.

> _RedSilkBandalore:_ secret romantic, huh?
> 
> _Catastrophe is typing…_

And then Chat Noir wasn't typing.

> _UnderAgreste:_ anyway M. Bug is funnier

> _Catastrophe:_ I don't follow?
> 
> _RedSilkBandalore:_ 1) you like non sequiturs, let me demonstrate
> 
> _RedSilkBandalore:_ dear chat
> 
> _RedSilkBandalore:_ schrödinger killed you
> 
> _RedSilkBandalore:_ schrödinger framed me
> 
> _RedSilkBandalore:_ love, curiosity

Bad idea bad idea _bad idea_ had she not _just_ told him he didn't need her—

> _Marineedles:_ 2)
> 
> _Marineedles:_ on second thought figure it out yourself
> 
> _UnderAgreste:_ ?

"Adrien! Marinette!"

Marinette jumped half a meter.

Adrien twitched, maybe an aborted try at looking back at her, and put his phone away. "Sorry, Mme. Bustier."

"Sorry, Mme. Bustier," Marinette echoed, locking her phone screen.

> _Vermeillya:_ ???
> 
> _Marineedles:_ LATER

—Hey.

> _Marineedles:_ could you do me a favor?
> 
> _Marineedles:_ not urgent at all
> 
> _Marineedles:_ make alya or somebody explain lotus/buttercup
> 
> _UnderAgreste:_ …should I be scared
> 
> _Marineedles:_ everyday ladybug brain: not at all, also you'll probably like it
> 
> _Marineedles:_ poltronnette brain: DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT, RUN AWAAAAAY
> 
> _UnderAgreste:_ You have never been cowardly a moment in your life

She'd underestimated Adrien's kindness and determination after all, hadn't she? And _insultingly_ underestimated his courage!

"—might do okay for a while, but Marinette Fashions would compete me right out of business," Adrien was saying. "She's got the comparative advantage, because she's got the hands-on skills and I can't pick up a needle without stabbing myself in the finger."

Marinette, who also could hardly pick up a needle without stabbing herself in the finger, snorted. "You know they make thimbles, right?"

Adrien buried his face in his hands. "No, Marinette," he said, muffled, "I, the grandchild of a successful fashion designer, who was really irritated that the family business and the family name only survive because his daughter _married_ a fashion designer and my father didn't much want his birth surname, have never in my life heard of a thimble."

"Sure thing, Wendy," said Marinette. Then realized what she meant and promptly dove under her desk.

She didn't come out from under the desk until they needed to rotate to the science lab, but she did manage to pay enough attention to class that Mme. Bustier eventually stopped asking her to.

Alya caught Marinette just outside Mme. Bustier's classroom. "Somebody drank her courage juice this morning!"

"—If you say so?"

"Somebody drinks her courage juice every morning," remarked Adrien, who had most certainly not been behind her a moment ago; Marinette composed herself. "I figure I don't see it much because I don't scare her much and also she doesn't like me much."

Marinette flushed. "Not a single word you just said was true."

Adrien eyed her. Marinette ducked her head; at this angle, given the way her hair fell, he should have no trouble seeing her earrings.

"Alya?" he asked, fiddling with his silver ring—which, now that she was looking at it like _Chat Noir's Miraculous_, not like _the ring Adrien always wears_, did look suspiciously like the one she knew in black and green, that she remembered rose-gold on her own finger. "What's she mean by that? Or by this?" He held up his phone, displaying a screenshot of—

That was not either _a_ screenshot of their private messages. The message at the top of the image was Marinette's _why not coccinel noir?_, and at the bottom, Adrien's _You have never been cowardly a moment in your life_—with her _2) on second thought figure it out yourself_ and Adrien's question mark omitted, right where the left-align scooted a couple pixels to one side.

Alya blinked at the screen, then turned to Marinette. "Tell him yourself."

"Yes, because that has been working so well," Marinette grumbled.

"I don't know if you noticed, Alya," Adrien said, "but Marinette doesn't like to go _through_ a problem when _around_ is an option."

Alya shrugged. "You still need to solve your own problems, girl."

Marinette opened her mouth; Adrien said "What did you think she's doing?" and Marinette shut her mouth again.

He focused on Marinette, moving tentatively to set one hand on her shoulder. "Um." Through that point of contact, she could feel him trembling. "Thimble. Wendy. Peter Pan?"

"—_Gotta go bye_!"

In the bathroom stall, Marinette shrieked into both her fists. "Why did I _do_ that, Tikki? Why can't—"

> _RedSilkBandalore:_ you know what just come find me

Ladybug swung across the city, turning over possibilities.

She stopped short of her own balcony only because that landed her on the one where Chat Noir had shown her—both of her—what he'd set up for the date he'd planned. Which, weirdly enough, if she'd gone, she wouldn't have gone to André's Sweethearts Ice Cream and upset the proprietor when Adrien never arrived—_funny_, that, but she supposed she couldn't blame him for thinking it wasn't a good idea to sneak out as Adrien, and she had no idea when Chat Noir had gotten or planned to get to this balcony to set it up anyway.

Chat Noir vaulted across the street below, doing a graceful flip before he landed facing her. Then watched her, looking a little hopeful and a little scared and a lot as if he wanted to say something and wasn't sure he should—or, possibly, could.

Ladybug swallowed, which did not help her suddenly dry mouth, and fished her pink metallic sports bottle full of berry-flavored electrolyte water out of her yo-yo storage, which did. "Nice save," she told him. "With, with the married joke."

"I wasn't kidding." He reached for her shoulder, but hesitated before connecting. "I don't—know what to think now. Today brings the total to twenty-three days I haven't had reason to think the super brave, super cute, and super creative blue-eyed girl I annoyed within ten seconds of meeting her still hates me." He flushed. "Not that I'm counting."

"—less than one a month," Ladybug calculated. Adrien thought Marinette was creative? And brave? Adrien _had_ thought that before today? "Oh gods I've fucked up."

Chat flinched.

"No, Chat—" She lunged, catching him by the arm. "I don't know if you noticed a pattern to what Alya does when we're both there?"

"Matchmaking," Chat said, one hand going embarrassedly to the back of his neck. "Not you lately, she's started trying to set me up with Lila—" Ladybug gagged dramatically. "—exactly." He paused, tugging at a lock of his hair. "Buttercups are yellow. And lotus—lián?"

"I still don't speak Mandarin. Write it out."

He typed 蓮 on his baton, and Ladybug nodded.

"And slash like—like AO3 tags. Not—not ampersand. Slash."

Ladybug sighed. "We're both scared out of our minds, aren't we." Chat ducked his head. "Thought so. I thought it would get easier being around my crush once he said he was in love with someone else—well, once I got over myself," she added, because it was one thing not to be able to shake an emotion that wasn't in itself hurting anyone, another to be stuck with one that she didn't expect could be reciprocated and would only hurt them both if he ever knew. "Hasn't worked."

"Is _that_ why you went quiet for weeks after Puppeteer hit the wax museum."

Chat sounded like people might when someone hit them with something surprisingly heavy, except that Ladybug had in fact done that repeatedly and he'd never sounded this way.

—Across the way, a curtain at a closed window was fluttering.

"If I didn't think someone had a camera on us right now," Ladybug muttered, glaring at the offending window, "I'd tell you to thimble me already."

Chat fell against the balcony railing, staring at her, and immediately made like he'd meant to do that all along.

"But since I'm pretty sure someone does, I'll tell you I broke a mirror a couple years ago."

"—Huh?"

"Seven years' bad luck," Ladybug explained, readying her yo-yo to head back to school. "Aren't you glad you crossed my path?"

Chat Noir vaulted after her, sputtering.

Back at school, Marinette hid in the bathroom for twenty more minutes while Tikki reassured and calmed her, then made a point of focusing on classwork till break, and did not answer a single question from anyone who wasn't a teacher. At break, she found a bench and got out her economics text to pretend to read.

Adrien sidled up to her, not sneakily enough to avoid Alya's attention. "Be warned that debate this morning is already on the Ladyblog," he told Marinette, who groaned. "Maybe don't let Alya see this yet—" He slipped something into her jeans pocket. "And I, um, thought you might want a shoulder rub?"

Marinette blinked at him.

He blushed. "Since you said, uh, about the black being lighter on the shoulders."

"About the what being what?" asked Alya.

"Nothing," said Adrien, "a design element she isn't sure ab—"

Marinette thimbled him. Then, while he was still looking like he wasn't quite sure that had happened, she dumped her textbook on the floor and pulled her legs up onto the bench so she could sit with her back to him. "Yes please."

"—What in the sweet fuck did I miss?" asked Alya.

"Adrien's giving me a shoulder rub," Marinette said cheerfully, and Alya squealed with delight and started taking photos. "Also I'm really curious now who _would_ win if Ladybug and Chat Noir decided to scuffle over who'd pay for the ice cream."

"I bet if I bribe them both with the ice cream money, we could find out." His fingers—odd to feel them without the claw-tipped gloves—were steady and warm and strong. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

Marinette fingered the kiss in her pocket. "When have we ever?"

"Good point."

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


End file.
